Props to N&R supremo John Robinson for writing a weekly column (unposted) (heavy sigh) that addresses reader comments and questions.

When I saw this morning's headline --"If we don't have space, the Internet does" -- I was thrilled. But JR wasn't promising more depth at the N&R website -- or even links to deep coverage from a hub at the N&R site -- he was telling readers in search of full-text convention speeches and the like to go find it somewhere else.

I understand conserving printed pages to focus on local news -- the future of the N&R's business, in my opinion -- and must-read features. But wouldn't it make more sense to bring readers to your own site, instead of sending them away?

An N&R reader emails: I have just finished reading your column in the Sunday News & Record, and while I learned things I had not known before now, I am in the dark as to the definition of "blogging". Can you please explain the meaning, as I am unable to find it in Webster's Dictionary. Thank you.

I tried to email him back, but it keeps getting bounced back. I'll try again later, but in the meantime, this is what I said:

A weblog is a personal web page written in the form of a journal. The word is a contraction of the words "web" and "log", as in a ship's log.

Here is a link to an article from yesterday's N&R with some background:

N&R editorial page boss Allen Johnson has some interesting notes on the Unity conference of minority journalists in this morning's paper (not posted; never posted, frustratingly).

On the ovations for John Kerry's speech: "(T)his was clearly inappropriate for a group of journalists...I felt embarrassed." He notes that many in attendance were not journalists, but educators, students, and PR people. "But they all should have known better."

He gives Bush credit for speaking to the conference, and for taking questions from a panel of journalists. "However, he should have prepared better." On the issue of Indian sovereignty, which Bush dealt with as governor of Texas, "he seemed totally befuddled...Hadn't somebody briefed him?"

Colin Powell "is a better natural speaker than both Kery and Bush, but on this occasion he had a lot less to say."

The Winston-Salem Journal editorializes: "Sending Vernon Robinson to Washington to represent the 5th District would be worse than sending no one at all...Far from helping the district, Vernon Robinson would taint it with the muck that fuels his self-aggrandizing efforts. The 5th District is better than that. Republican voters should make that clear on Tuesday."

My newspaper column in this morning's News & Record discusses the emerging art of local campaign blogging, with a quick pan out to the Bowles-Burr Senate race, and a look ahead to governance blogging, too.

Jeff Thigpen has something to tell you. Lots of things, actually, like what a boisterous meeting of the Guilford County commissioners looks like from a commissioner's point of view, and why you should vote for him to become Register of Deeds in November. So Thigpen got himself a weblog, and now he can talk to voters and constituents any time he likes.